Airbus unveils double-decker super plane

French President Jacques Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are among more than 5,000 guests invited for a first glimpse of the A380, which some airlines are betting will reshape the industry.

Customers have committed almost $40 billion to buying the 555-seat plane, expecting it to lower operating costs and fatten profits, battered in a slowdown since 2001.

'It's the first seriously radically new plane for a generation,' said Paul Moore, spokesman for British airline Virgin Atlantic, which has six A380s on order.

The plane will dwarf rival Boeing Co.'s 416-seat 747-400, for four decades the reigning heavyweight. It will accommodate more than 800 if airlines use all-economy seating.

'The aircraft, which is enormous by any measure, should be a 'game-changer' in the long-haul market,' J.P. Morgan analyst Chris Avery said in a recent research report.

The risk for Airbus is that it must deliver on the enormous promise of the plane, which will take its first flight in March and faces a year of flight trials. 'A lot of the good news has been factored into EADS shares,' said one London-based analyst.

Airbus needs to keep the A380 on schedule, not only to satisfy customers but also to allow its engineers to turn to building its planned A350 mid-sized model and spearheading Europe's planned military transport plane, the A400M.